Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan dies at Dallas hospital

DALLAS - Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Wednesday announced that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who was the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, has died.

The hospital issued the following statement by email:

It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 a.m. Mr. Duncan succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola. He fought courageously in this battle. Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, are also grieving his passing. We have offered the family our support and condolences at this difficult time.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins also issued a statement:

My thoughts are with the family and friends of Thomas Eric Duncan at this time, especially his fiancee Louise, their son Karsiah and all those who loved him. We are also thinking of the dedicated hospital staff who assisted Mr. Duncan daily while he fought this terrible disease. We offer prayers of comfort and peace to everyone impacted by his passing.

The 42-year-old Duncan put a face on the deadly virus that has taken nearly 4,000 lives in a West African epidemic this year. He drew worldwide attention to the Dallas hospital, where he lay in isolation for 10 days. His ordeal brought home to Americans the reality of a plague once considered a faraway problem.

Reporters around the world have pieced together a life story of the man who illness left unable to speak for himself. Friends and family describe a man who once sought the safety of a refugee camp as he fled civil war. He received an education. He fathered a child with a neighbor, Louise Troh, who lived next door.

His son, Karsiah Duncan, was born in the refuge camp in 1995. The couple never married. The birth of their son formalized their union, according to local custom.

Troh got a visa and took her son to America. Karsiah Duncan graduated from Conrad High School in Dallas and now attends college in San Angelo, Texas.

Duncan stayed in the camp, which became a permanent settlement. Some say he stayed by choice, while others believe he simply couldn't get a visa to follow his family.

Less than a year ago, Duncan returned to Liberia, after two decades in neighboring countries. He took a job as a cabdriver in Monrovia. The first case of Ebola was reported in West Africa in December 2013.

In late August of this year, Duncan received a visa and made plans come to Dallas and marry Troh.

He shared the good news with his brother, Wilfred Smallwood, who lives in Phoenix.

Four days before Duncan's planned flight to a new life, his landlord's pregnant daughter became convulsive. An ambulance was summoned, but did not come. Duncan, riding in the front seat of a taxi, accompanied the 19-year-old woman and two of her family to the hospital. When they were told there was no room for the woman, Duncan helped her family take her home, where she later died.

'That's how we grew up,” Smallwood said Monday. 'To help people.”